Didn't understand Oppenheimer? Here are some hidden Easter eggs!

Have you seen Nolan's Oppenheimer?

Even if you don't know anything about the background story, you can still understand this movie; but if you know this history, there are countless moments in the movie that will make you smile .

Three hours is already a long time for a film, but it seems not enough to tell the greatness of Oppenheimer, so Nolan crammed a lot of information into every frame.

All the characters in the movie are in the "perfect tense". All the past experiences of a character are condensed in the shot where he/she appears . This is a great test for the actor's acting skills and the audience's understanding.

The film was inspired by the famous Pulitzer Prize-winning biography "Oppenheimer". Nolan said: "There is a lot of authoritative information here. Every stone has been turned over. No stone has not been turned over... If there is no original work by Kay Bird and Martin Sherwin, I don't think I would have made this movie. "

Nolan and Kay Bird, author of Oppenheimer

Every shot or line in Nolan's film corresponds to a story in history:

For example, the movie only shows Oppenheimer reading TS Eliot's The Waste Land for one second, but if you have read the original book, you will know that after Oppenheimer became the director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, he invited Eliot to visit the institute for a semester, which was simply chasing stars at public expense;

For example, Oppenheimer told Strauss that his father was also self-taught. The original book said that his father not only taught himself to become the most knowledgeable cloth merchant in New York, but also taught himself English.

For example, Strauss told his campaign manager that he was friends with Henry Luce, the founder of People magazine. What he didn't say was that in 1953 he had directed Henry Luce's Time, Life, and Fortune magazines to publish articles fiercely criticizing Oppenheimer...

01

Prometheus of America

At the beginning of Nolan's film, Oppenheimer is compared to American Prometheus. This metaphor comes from the inspiration source and original biography of Oppenheimer - "American Prometheus" is the Chinese translation of the English title of this book.

The two authors of "Oppenheimer's Biography", Kay Bird and Martin Sherwin , interviewed nearly 100 of Oppenheimer's close friends, relatives and colleagues, and referred to more than 50,000 documents. After 25 years of hard work, they finally completed the manuscript of this book. They originally named the book "Oppie", which is Oppenheimer's nickname. But the publisher called them and told them, "You must not use this stupid name" , and they had to come up with a new name within two days.

Kay Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

The two authors pondered over it and sought help from people around them. Coincidentally, Bird's wife and Sherwin's friend came up with the same name - American Prometheus . So they used this word as the title of the book.

Before this, few people equated Oppenheimer with Prometheus. As the book became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize, more people began to think of Oppenheimer as a fire thief.

The book explains this metaphor as follows:

Oppenheimer was America's Prometheus, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb." During World War II, under his leadership, scientists seized the amazing sun's fire from nature for their country.

Oppenheimer gave us atomic fire, like the rebellious Greek god Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind. But later, when Oppenheimer wanted to prevent it from getting out of control and make us aware of its dangers and horrors, the powers that be rose up like Zeus and struck him down.

Source: Oppenheimer

02

“I’m having a bad time”

The film begins with Oppenheimer feeling frustrated in Cambridge. If you don't know how smooth his first 18 years were, you might not understand the huge gap in his life at this time: for the first time, he, who had always been a favored child, felt such a strong frustration .

In 1904, Oppenheimer was born into a wealthy family in New York. His father was a self-made German immigrant and his mother was a painter. His family had villas, yachts, servants, and a collection of paintings by famous painters including Picasso, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt. Oppenheimer lived a life of luxury, but he was not spoiled. He was intelligent and precocious. In his childhood, he did not have much in common with his peers, but fortunately his parents and teachers thought he was a genius and cultivated him vigorously. At the age of 12, Oppenheimer was already a member of the New York Mineralogical Club and gave speeches in front of a group of geologists and ore collectors.

Robert Oppenheimer, born in 1904, sitting on his father's lap

Source: Oppenheimer

In middle school, he studied at Fieldston School, a famous private school in the United States. Studies were as easy as playing for him . In addition to history, English literature, mathematics and physics, Oppenheimer also took elective courses in Greek, Latin, French and German, and graduated with full honors, giving a speech as a representative of outstanding students.

Oppenheimer successfully entered Harvard University at the age of 18 and refused the scholarship the school gave him - he said he could live well without the money . At Harvard, Oppenheimer chose chemistry as his major (although he found out a few months later that he preferred physics). He took 6 courses every semester and managed to audit two or three extra courses. However, he still graduated with the highest honors in just 3 years , obtained a bachelor's degree in chemistry, and an offer for a graduate degree in physics at Cambridge.

Source: Oppenheimer

In 1925, Oppenheimer came to England, but life in Cambridge was a nightmare . Most of the physicists in Cambridge were engaged in experimental physics, but Oppenheimer had very poor hands-on skills. He felt that he had accomplished nothing here, and for the first time in his life, he could not feel superior intellectually. Oppenheimer suffered from severe depression, and even the "poisoned apple incident" occurred.

03

Poisoned Apple Incident

Oppenheimer's mentor, Patrick Blackett , was an outstanding experimental physicist. He was tall and elegant, and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948.

Blackett was only seven years older than Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer liked this mentor very much and was eager to gain his recognition, but Oppenheimer was very bad at doing experiments, which made him feel useless.

Amid a complex mix of frustration, jealousy, and low self-esteem, Oppenheimer suffered from severe depression, and was often unable to concentrate, fainted, and lost control of his emotions. Even his close friends at the time said that Oppenheimer sometimes couldn't distinguish between imagination and reality .

Finally, Oppenheimer was overcome by anxiety. He poisoned an apple with lab chemicals and placed it on Blackett's desk. Fortunately, Blackett didn't eat the apple, but the school administration learned of it.

Stills from Oppenheimer

According to Oppenheimer himself, he put cyanide in the apple in an attempt to poison Blackett.

But given that he had hallucinations more than once at that time, and if cyanide was really put in, his punishment could not be so light - although his parents lobbied hard, it was only academic probation and psychiatric treatment , which was too incredible for attempted murder - so it is more likely that Oppenheimer put some non-lethal but physically uncomfortable substances in the apple.

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Have you seen Oppenheimer? What impressed you most?